'Biggest lie': Harris under fire for falsely accusing Hamas of rapes

US Vice President Kamala Harris has sparked outrage after promoting unproven and false Israeli claims that Palestinian resistance fighters raped Israeli women and killed some 1,200 Israelis during their October 7 blitz on Israeli military sites and settlements that were once Arab farms and villages.

"It's absolutely shameful that Kamala Harris is repeating atrocity propaganda on national TV," Ashish Prashar, a political strategist and commentator, told TRT World.

"Yet she goes out there and continues to spread those lies to justify Israel's right to genocide."

During the presidential debate with rival Donald Trump on Tuesday night, Harris refused to discuss Israel's mass slaughter of Palestinians in besieged Gaza.

Instead she chose to repeat lies and false claims of sexual and gender-based violence peddled by the Israeli regime and far-right Western media.

"Women were horribly raped," she falsely claimed during the debate. "And so absolutely, I said then I say now Israel has a right to defend itself. We would."

Harris also mentioned that "Hamas slaughtered 1200 Israelis," despite Israeli officials, local media and experts arguing that Israel used its notorious Hannibal Directive to kill its own people during its response to Hamas' surprise raid.

The controversial military strategy instructs the Israeli military to kill fellow soldiers and ordinary Israelis in the event of a kidnapping situation.

'Biggest lie of the night'

Prashar also slammed the double standards of fact-checkers and moderators.

While acknowledging the frequency with which Trump was fact-checked immediately and rebutted by moderators, he pointed out that Harris was not at all held to the same standard of integrity.

Prashar called Harris's statement as "the biggest lie of the night", one that the debate's moderators let slide entirely. He said Trump was challenged by moderators for his remarks on immigrants eating pets of Americans.

"Look, the moderators did what they had to do to Donald Trump but they did no fact checking on Kamala Harris," he said.

"Imagine if we had actual independent fact-checkers who said to her, No, Madam Vice President, there were no mass rapes." Prashar added.

"But in fact, we have video of Israeli occupation soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee, a Palestinian prisoner held illegally."

October 7 blitz

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas says its October 7 blitz on Israel that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas fighters rolled into as many as 22 locations outside Gaza, including towns and other communities as far as 24 kilometers from the Gaza fence.

In some places they are said to have gunned down many soldiers as Israel's military scrambled to muster a response. In its botched reaction, Israeli military is said to have killed many of their soldiers and civilians.

Upon return to Gaza, Hamas fighters took along some 240 hostages, including Israeli military personnel and civilians.

Dozens of the captives were later exchanged for Palestinians incarcerating in Israeli dungeons. Many Israeli captives were killed in Gaza due to indiscriminate Israeli bombardment that has flattened much of Gaza.

Since then, Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza from air, land and sea, killing nearly 41,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, wounding nearly 100,000 and displacing nearly all 2.4 million people in the tiny coastal enclave.

Israel is accused of carrying out genocide of Palestinians at the International Court of Justice. Many countries have joined the case and prosecutors have been seeking arrest warrants from International Criminal Court for the hawkish Israeli leaders including Benjamin Netanyahu.